A proposal to create a regional body to run a voluntary collaboration of Delta hospitals has died in the Legislature, but those who have been pushing the idea are not giving up despite their disappointment.
“It’s unfortunate, but we’re going to regroup and try to see what our next steps and options are,” said Wade Litton, chairman of the board of Delta Council.
Litton, the CEO of Greenwood-based implement dealer Wade Inc., has been heavily involved in Delta Council’s effort to address the financial crisis that has been facing many hospitals in the region, most acutely Greenwood Leflore Hospital.
Litton and other Delta Council leaders pitched the idea of creating the Delta Regional Health Authority, which would take control of any community hospital in the region that wanted to be part of a multi-hospital group rather than going it alone.
A bill to do that passed in the Senate earlier during the legislative session but was rejected in the House, which instead passed a bill to create a 20-member task force to study the idea further.
Sen. David Parker, R-Hernando, who chairs that chamber’s Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee, was the sponsor of the Senate version. Although his committee amended the House bill to reinsert the Senate language, Parker ultimately decided not to bring the proposal back up for a second vote by the full Senate. The legislation died when Wednesday’s deadline for floor action passed.
Parker said his bill met opposition from several Delta senators and House members, who complained when the proposal was first introduced that they were not involved in its formulation. Parker said he was also concerned by the insistence of some senators from the region to enlarge the size of the health authority’s board.
The bill called for five initial members to be appointed by the governor or lieutenant governor, with up to six additional members appointed largely from communities whose hospitals participated. The counterproposal wanted instead to start with 13 members and expand to more than 20, according to Parker.
“I found that to be a challenging board size to really get things accomplished,” he said.
Parker said he talked with Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, chair of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee, which handled the Delta Regional Health Authority legislation on that side of the Capitol.
“I told him that I thought it would probably be better to bring that back maybe next year when the parties, particularly the representatives and senators who represent that area, have had a little more time to digest the concept,” Parker said. “On something that’s going to help the Delta so much, I believe, it would be nice to have buy-in of those who are representing the area instead of the opposition.”
Under the plan pitched by Delta Council, hospitals that joined the regional health authority would still be owned by their local governments, but they would be turning over most of the control to the authority’s board and the day-to-day management to the chief executive officer that board hires. The CEO would have the power to hire and fire, and the authority would determine what medical services are offered where.
The hospitals would continue to have their own boards as well, but their powers would be much more limited and largely determined by the regional authority’s board.
Proponents say such a collaboration would help the hospitals by sharing hard-to-recruit medical specialists and providing greater buying power to reduce the cost of the goods and services the hospitals use. The plan envisions creating “Centers of Excellence,” where the specialists would be concentrated. For example, one hospital might be a Center of Excellence for cardiology, another for urology and maybe another for neonatal intensive care.
Proponents also say regionalization is the only way for rural hospitals to adapt to the population declines they have experienced and the changing landscape of health-care delivery, in which insurers increasingly push for services to be delivered on an outpatient basis, which is less lucrative for hospitals.
For Delta hospitals to continue to operate independently, said Litton, “is going to be an outdated approach and is not sustainable. Having a regional authority to pull resources, to offer Centers of Excellence and be able to pull economies of scale and doctors and get additional funding is the direction that we need to take in order to provide health care for every single citizen in the Delta.”
Litton acknowledged that recent enhancements in how Mississippi hospitals are being reimbursed for Medicaid patients have reduced the sense of urgency that existed when Delta Council and the health-care experts it enlisted started strategizing 18 months ago.
In the past four months, the federal government has approved Gov. Tate Reeves’ requests to change how some Medicaid supplemental payments are calculated. Mississippi hospitals are projected to net about $700 million more annually from the changes.
“We’re not standing on a burning flame,” Litton said. “But I think in the future where we’re heading, (regionalization) is the best direction to be able to provide quality health care for everybody in the Delta.”
Parker said that those who feel discouraged by this past week’s outcome should take heart.
“It’s not uncommon to have a piece of legislation like this that is new to require more than one session to get it to the finish line,” he said.
- Contact Tim Kalich at 662-581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
